FC Barcelona have agreed a strategic partnership with sports and media business IMG, treatment to exclusively represent the club’s commercial interests in China.

The three-year deal between both parties covers brand and commercial strategy, sponsorship, exhibition games and tours.

FC Barcelona CEO, Ignacio Mestre, said: “We have been impressed with the work that IMG has done in developing football in China and they are the perfect partner for us to strike a strategic relationship with.

“China is an important country for us to connect with our fans and to continue to succeed in and it is imperative that we work with a company that understands the China market and has a track record of success.”

Robbie Henchman, SVP, Head of IMG Asia Pacific, said: “FC Barcelona is an iconic football club with a rich history that stretches to every part of the footballing world and we are excited at the prospect of working with them in China.

“Our unique experience and expertise in China will enable the club to further develop its interests across a number of areas and enhance the club’s already strong presence in a country we know very well.

“We have been at the forefront of China’s burgeoning football industry through, in particular, our work in cultivating and developing the Chinese Super League (CSL) as the strategic partner of the League.”

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Members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) have begun gathering in Buenos Aires ahead of the 125^th Session. During the Session the IOC will elect a host city for the 2020 Olympic Games, a sport to be added to the programme and a new President.

iSportconnect’s Editor-at-Large Jay Stuart caught up with internationally renowned journalist Keir Radnedge to discuss the ins-and-outs of the Session.

Keir has over 40 years’ experience as a journalist, including 20 years at The Daily Mail. He has been covering the 2020 bidding process from the start and has visited the three cities, Madrid, Istanbul and Tokyo during the IOC Evaluation Committee’s visits.

Many expect Tokyo to be named the host city, Wrestling to be reinstated into the programme and Thomas Bach to be elected as President.

However, Keir told iSportconnect to expect a surprise. “In any sort of gambling mix, there is usually a surprise somewhere along the way,” he said. “It might be in the city vote?

“I don’t think all those three are going to be the winners that people expect at the end.”

Keir Radnedge has been covering football worldwide for more than 40 years, writing 33 books, from tournament guides to comprehensive encyclopedias, aimed at all ages.

His journalism career included The Daily Mail for 20 years as well as The Guardian and other national newspapers and magazines in the UK and around the world. He is a former editor, and remains a lead columnist, with World Soccer, generally recognised as the premier English language magazine on global football.

In addition to his writing, Keir has been a regular analyst for BBC radio and television, Sky Sports, Sky News, Aljazeera and CNN.

Keir Radnedge’s Twitter: @KeirRadnedge

Keir Radnedge’s 

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The president of British Cycling Brian Cookson has announced he will stand against Pat McQuaid for the presidency of the International Cycling Union (UCI).

Cookson, 61, had previously said he was ‘100 per cent supportive’ of McQuaid but has now been nominated by his national federation.

“Cycling has been at the heart of my life for as long as I can remember,” said Cookson.

“It has shaped my personality as much as it has my professional career, and I will always be grateful for the sheer enjoyment, inspiration and opportunity that cycling has given me.

“But the passion I and many others have for cycling cannot hide the fact that our international body, the UCI, remains hugely distracted, continuing to flounder in waves of damaging historical controversies.

“For far too many people our sport is associated with doping, with decisions that are made behind closed doors and with ceaseless conflicts with important members of the cycling family and other key stakeholders.

“This situation is deeply damaging for our sport, and it has severely compromised the UCI’s ability to develop and communicate some of the good work that is happening across the world.”

Cookson said that these points were the reason he wanted to run for presidency, saying that restoring ‘credibility’ and improving the way anti-doping was managed in cycling were his top priorities

Surprise for McQuaid

McQuaid has been the head of UCI since 2006 and admitted he was surprised the Cookson would be running against him.

“I’m a little bit surprised with Brian, but that’s as much as I’d like to say on that,” McQuaid told Cyclingnews.

“I know him very well and I’ve known him for a long time.”

McQuaid has been under increased scrutiny following the Lance Armstrong revelations that the cyclist had used performance-enhancing drugs throughout his career.

Cookson has played a major role in securing the future of cycling in the UK, which was typified by British cyclists finishing top of the medal table at London 2012.

He has headed British Cycling unpaid since 1996, having been a part of the committee that saved it from insolvency.

The election will take place at the UCI Congress at the World Championships in September.

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The President of US Sailing, generic Thomas Hubbell, believes the sport should focus on gaining new participants, rather than adding television viewers.

Speaking exclusively to iSportconnect, Hubbell added that the “strategic” nature of sailboat racing makes it difficult to broadcast effectively on television.

Hubbell said: “Sailboat racing is an athletic and strategic chess game, played on an ever changing field that is too big to fit on a television screen, has no time-outs and has an uncertain duration of 30 minutes to several weeks.

“I would rather we spend all our energy putting new participants on the water than creating spectators sitting in front of TV sets.”

However, the President did add that documentaries can help to recruit new participants and commented on future television opportunities.

“Spectacular documentaries or IMAX-like features would be very compelling for recruiting sailors,” he said.

“In addition, the America’s Cup races years ago in Freemantle made great television.

“I’m looking forward to seeing how Stan Honey will make the 2013 America’s Cup into a more understandable TV experience.”

Dr. Hubbell had previously served as the Vice President of US sailing for nine years before taking over as President in November 2012.

You can read the full interview here>>

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The eminent and well respected CEO of a leading sports club once refused to sanction a budgeted expenditure of £40,000 on a brand refresh project. For sure, £40,000 is not an insignificant dollop of cash even in a business where certain employees earn that amount in only a couple of days. However, it was not the amount per se that so concerned the CEO. His reticence was a consequence of his suspicion that there was no return to be had on the investment.

This scenario poses the tricky question: Can real value ever be achieved from an investment in brand marketing?

To get to an answer, we first have to define our terms. Brand marketing is the activity that utilises all of the properties associated with an organisation’s identity. This may include a crest or logo, a name or style and any verbal, graphic or pictorial design features (including colour pantones, textures and font styles) that when taken together present an overall image or expectation particular to a product or company.

The problem is that few companies with a well-defined brand image invest enough time or effort to manage and develop their property. There is a commonly held view, (particularly among the accountants who seem to run most businesses today) that investment in a brand is simply another clever wheeze by the marketing department to keep themselves gainfully employed. And yet for many companies, the corporate brand is their single most valuable asset. It may not appear on the balance sheet under an obvious heading, but it is certainly present albeit in intangible form.

Let’s take the example of a leading Premiership football club and list the qualities that underpin the global accessibility and recognition of its brand:-

Unprecedented success on the pitch under the guidance of a wise (if a somewhat irascible) manager of many years service; an enviable squad of players assembled by supplementing the product of a global youth scouting system with the expensive acquisition of established stars; a stadium and training facility that is second to none; an international fan base numbering hundreds of millions spanning the globe and all constantly exposed to TV, digital and news media hungry to promote the team’s name and glorious track record of success; a portfolio of corporate sponsors eager to lavish their cash in return for a little reflected glory; an unswerving sense of loyalty and affinity that can persuade even the most casual of supporters to consume every piece of merchandise and branded tat peddled by the club’s official Megastore – including club-branded mortgages!

Assuming these qualities are backed by a sensible and prudent approach to financial management (and that the club is not overly burdened by unsustainable levels of debt), there is every reason to expect the outcome will be substantial if not sector leading sales revenues and the generation of year on year profit growth to satisfy even the most vulpine consortium of corporate investors and PIK note lenders.

So how can we quantify the brand value of this fabled if not mythical organisation? It’s easy really. Just sell the players, sell the stadium and the training facilities; sell the database of fans; sell all media assets and capitalise all sponsorship contracts. In fact, sell off every asset that appears on the balance sheet. Now, compare the total realisable assets of our sale with the market value of the club. The difference between the two figures is the value of the brand. In our hypothetical example the figure would be north of £400m. Now isn’t that worth an investment of £40k?

Steven Falk’s

If you have any questions or comments, please post it below

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Italian capital club AS Roma have entered into a commercial partnership with telecommunications company Linkem.

Roma, apoplectic who currently sit second in Serie A behind Juventus, remedy are currently without a main shirt sponsor; however, this role will not be filled by Linkem, with their agreement instead focussing on extensive brand presence at the Stadio Olimpico.

Roma are reportedly earning around $2m a year from the deal.

FIBA, viagra the International Basketball Federation, on Tuesday announced it has signed a nine-year sponsorship deal with Tencent, a leading global digital company. The agreement complements the media partnership which the two parties announced back in May.

Under this partnership, which will be for the period 2017-2025, Tencent will have the status of FIBA Partner and Global Partner at all of FIBA’s major national team competitions for men and women at senior and youth levels, including: FIBA Basketball World Cups, FIBA Continental Cups, FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournaments, FIBA U19 and U17 World Championships and FIBA Basketball World Cup Qualifiers. The FIBABasketball World Cup 2019 in China represents an important landmark in this agreement.

As part of the deal, the brands which will be activated at these tournaments include Tencent popular social network QQ.com, instant messaging service WeChat, e-payment services WeChat Payment and QQ Wallet and online video games platform Tencent Games.

Tencent and its associated brands will receive significant brand visibility at FIBAcompetitions on and off the court, and will be able to promote extensively its products and services to the global basketball community across all FIBA channels.

Patrick Baumann, FIBA Secretary General and International Olympic Committee (IOC) Member, said: “Following the media partnership with Tencent, FIBA is extremely pleased to announce this important sponsorship agreement which will further cement the relationship between our two organisations. China is already today one of the most important countries for FIBA and basketball and has a lot of heritage with over 600,000 basketball courts across the country.

“We aim to build on the enormous passion for the sport in this territory in our quest to make basketball the most popular sport in every corner of the world. With such a partner as Tencent, we can bring basketball to every household in China not only on the road to the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019, but far beyond.”

SY Lau, Senior Executive Vice President of Tencent & President of its Online Media Group, said: “We are very glad to establish the strategic partnership with FIBA, the world governing body for basketball. Tencent and FIBA will work together closely in a variety of capacities in the coming nine years, particularly for the 2019 and 2023 FIBABasketball World Cups. Built upon a massive user base of around 800 million viewers, Tencent will keep working on expanding the influence of international basketball in China and driving China’s sports industry to new heights through a score of ever-improving media products and technologies.”